Joy

Feeling Fresh…. like a freshman! Nah, I kid. But I feel like college is a whole new experience again.

It is coming to the close of my first week back in school and I have come to a couple conclusions.

• I totally missed out last year by not being involved.
• I’m actually studying and everything still seems surmountable.
• Work is coinciding VERY well with my schooling endeavors.
• Chris is pretty darn busy and more involved than me, I’d better step it up!
• Campus doctors feel they are more knowledgeable than science.
• I am going to have buff thighs after walking so fast between classes.

It’s good to start new and work harder, I think this time it may actually stick though! Let’s hope I continue to be on top of it all.

My end of summer hooplah consisted of some pretty fun excursions. First Chris and I spent two days up in Bear Lake enjoying a luxurious condo. It was a little too cool to enjoy the beach thoroughly but Chris got some Skim Boarding in. My favorite part was definitely the hot tub…
Saturday was spent in a comatose sleep… time wasted but I will never get to do it again, so it was nice. Then Sunday after church and finding out that Chris and I aren’t allowed to go to church together anymore (thanks to an overly hyped meeting about new boundaries) we headed back up to Bear Lake where we utilized Chris’s little brother Sam’s connections and got to go for a jaunt on a Jet Ski. It was cold and scary (since the last time I was on one I wrecked it) but A LOT of fun.
Though I didn’t get a REAL summer vacation, I enjoyed the summer.

I have very few days left of my summer vacation and I’m realizing how short it was. I do have a few last minute vacation-type things that I am going to do until I return to school. I am, however, not one of those kids who hates going back to school. In fact, I love it. I love new classes, new material, and new teachers. And as much as I complain about the cost of textbooks, I even like the sight of new ones on my bookshelf. My current schedule is a little grueling, though not as bad as poor Chris’s I might say. I am very grateful for my current job and that it will continue through the school year but the hours will undoubtedly still take their toll. I am in school or at work from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day and afterwards must study in hopes of attaining my new academic goal. It’s going to be hard not being able to just blow time like I am used to, but at the same time it will be so much better. Like everybody else, the busier I get the more I can accomplish in less time. I am excited to test my new proficiency skills and hope that they can meet par. But until the test begins, I’m going to barbeque, sit around, and enjoy what’s left of freedom.

I overcame one of my biggest fears last night…. horseback riding.
I was supposed to go with Chris but his three works schedules didn’t work out, imagine that. Granted I was bummed, but I was going to do this!
So Kati and I went to meet up with a high school friend, Becca (Red), who works at the American West Heritage Center, and her friend Chance.

The first animal they showed me was a mule…. I thought mules were a cross between a horse and a donkey, HOW DID THEY GET SO FREAKING HUGE?!? Needless to say, I was already terrified and convinced I was going home a quadriplegic.

We then went to go round up our horses, yeah that’s right, they gave me a bridle and sent me into an open field to catch a horse. (I will note that these are horses who see people every single day, not much will spook them and they are probably the most chill things alive.) Mine was a paint named Red, she was very temperate and probably the most lackadaisical in the whole group. We packed them into a little trailer and drove out to Sardine Canyon where we unloaded our little friends. The hike we went on was about six miles to the top of the mountain but the over look was BEAUTIFUL! After a few hyperventilating stints while my horse tried to trot, I felt quite a bit more comfortable, I think I may have found my inner cowgirl  by the end. Chance said he’ll try and hook us up another time so Chris can go too (since he’s never been). And who knows, by then I may let my horse trot a little.

I officially feel like a middle aged woman.

• I wake up before 8:00 a.m. without an alarm.
• I eat oatmeal and eggs, every morning, oatmeal and eggs.
• My joints hurt when I roll out of bed and I have to do that awkward hoist movement to stand up.
• I use a restoring mouthwash because obsessive teeth habits have left me with very little enamel.
• I sit at a desk for six hours a day, complain about HR, and have inter-office gossip.
• I got to training and meetings with women who have children in college.
• I write to-do lists in my planner, like my mother does.
• I love going to sleep early and eating red meat.
• I see people my age doing reckless things and it pisses me off.
• I honk at scary drivers.
• I have a hard time driving at night because I can’t see. Mind you, it’s not because I have that bad of vision, it’s because I’m too lazy to clean the inside of my window and lights make it impossible to see through.
• Play a board game is WAY more enthralling to me than playing a video game.
• I prefer not to wear a bra. (Which whether that classifies as middle aged or hippie, I’ll leave to your discretion)
• When I get home from work at 3:00 p.m. I change into pajamas, fortunately it’s not a nightie or moo-moo yet.
• The pants I wear today depend on what I ate yesterday.
• I plan out what bills to pay and when depending on who’s late charges are worse.
• I want to buy a new car but can’t.
• I get hot flashes and have a fan on my desk at work that points directly at my face, all day long.
• I debated purchasing one of those 64 oz. mugs for Diet Dr. Pepper. (I refrained)
• I claim popular music is vulgar and awful but listen to vulgar and awful music from two decades ago and feel wholesome.
• I have to wear glasses to read.
• My purse is big enough to hide a watermelon.
• I wear shoes that look hideous with my outfit because they are more comfy than flats.
• I can’t eat junk food like I used to because it makes me sick.
• I have my entire day planned out, color coded, in an excel spreadsheet.
• I have doctor appointments, regularly.
• I just spent close to twenty minutes making a list about how I feel old.

I am very weathered when it comes to moving, I know how to do it quickly, inexpensively, and efficiently. Other people do not have the crazy experience as I do so therefore it takes a little bit longer (aka more than 24 hrs lol) to get situated in a new apartment. My roommate and one of my best friends, Laura, was so crazy busy with cosmetology school, work, moving and her family visiting that her life was quite the upturn.

At the same time, Chris has taken on two jobs plus running his own landscaping business and school hasn’t started yet for me, so I tend to find myself with a lot of free time on my hands. Last night being one of those times.

Put those two things together and I decided to start helping Laura get all moved in. I secretly enjoyed getting out Kati’s leatherman and putting together Laura’s new shelves… I am such a dork. But over all I love the feeling of finally being organized and functional in a new house.

Here’s to everyone who didn’t believe that you could comfortably fit two people in that room. P.s. it has more floor space in the room than the rooms we’ve been living in for the past two and a half years.

Good news and bad news and great news.

Good news; thanks to Noel for bringing his A/C all the way from Denver, my little apartment was a beautiful 72 degrees at 4:00 p.m. when I got home. There is nothing more amazing than a cool apartment in the vile Logan, Utah summer.

Bad news; poor Chris had a mishap with his 700+lbs trailer that he was trying to move by himself. The picture does not do the injuries justice but that is just a taste of what he sustained.

Great news; I was working in my boss’s office earlier yesterday morning before my payroll training and happened upon this happy little post-it note

So I am officially moved into my new apartment. Everything is in place and functional. No boxes reside anywhere and I feel like it’s home already.
I would like to go on a small soap box about how nice it is to have roommates that:
1)Clean up after themselves; you’d be surprised how many 20+ adults there are out there that live as literal pigs.
2)Willing to pitch in their financial part; I bought toilet paper and other amenities and shocker, I was reimbursed. Something that rarely happens.
3)Have good taste; I love having things look nice and cute and it is so hard when somebody wants something atrocious in the living room as a center piece.
4)Are on the same religious level as you; living with party animals is difficult but I’d take it any day over living with judgmental molly mormons.

All in all, I am very happy. Our second air conditioner should be coming tomorrow so we will be enjoying a cool, cute, and contention free home… it’s like magic.

Chris’s family donated a couch big enough for all three of us! Kudos and thanks to the Blatchfords.

Happily my comforter fit my larger bed, one less expense avoided.

Though it’s cramped, I fit everything.

Those shelves were definitely a blessing.

I think I am weird… but I love moving. I love packing up everything, getting rid of lots of junk, and assessing if all of my worldly possessions can fit in my ’93 Oldsmobile. After a grueling summer of high roommate tensions, (one annoying one in particular) and me practically living at Chris’s house because I plainly can’t stand them, I am going to be moving into the apartment that my brother rented for the first few years of his married life. It’s small, and we’re fitting more people in it than it’s probably zoned for but meh. I get my own room again, which I am ECSTATIC for. I have nothing at all against my two friends I will be living with but there is something so nice about having a place for you. Only yours. No one can tell you it’s too hot or too cold and you can decorate it however you want. I can’t wait for Sunday! Granted the only thing I have remotely packed is all the kitchen stuff… but Saturday is more than enough time for me. I may be a mean person but I secretly enjoyed my roommate, whom I don’t particularly care for, coming in and realizing that there are no dishes, cooking appliances, or utensils because she’s been mooching off of Kati, Laura, and I for the past three months. Ah, justice… Anyway, needless to say… it’s going to be a good weekend.

Well today started off bad but got significantly better. Chris came over this afternoon and we decided to go for a drive. We haven’t explored Blacksmith Fork Canyon yet, so that was our destination. A ways up the canyon it turned into a dirt road, then a rough dirt road, then an ATV road… still we continued in Chris’s truck. It was so beautiful, we got so incredibly high up too.

We finally found pavement somewhere around Rudolph, expecting Bear Lake, we were shocked to have to drive a while to get there. My favorite exchange of conversation…
Chris said, “We’re not lost.”
I said, “If we don’t know what state we’re in, I think we’re lost.”

Our navigation through the forest is best depicted by the picture below…